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Berlin / Washington (dpa) - There were only a few presidents in the US who seriously believed they could rule their country without pets.
One of them: Donald Trump.
With his shepherd dogs "Champ" and "Major", Trump's successor Joe Biden will, however, resume the tried and tested tradition with the planned move into the White House.
Because the list of presidential pets in Washington is long.
“BO” and “SUNNY”: In 2009, Barack Obama kept an election campaign promise to his daughters and made the Portuguese water dog “Bo” the nation's “First Dog”.
"We have to make sure that someone greets us at the door when we come home," the president said at the time.
"Sunny" followed in 2013, just one year old at the time.
According to the White House, the Obamas had again opted for a Portuguese water dog because of “family allergies”.
Even at press conferences and state visits, the two became loyal companions.
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“SOCKS” and “BUDDY”: One of the most famous cats in the world died in 2009 at the age of 18.
Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea once picked up the black tomcat with the distinctive white spots on its paws - hence the name "Socks" - on the street.
After moving into the White House in 1993, "Socks" was the Clinton family's only pet.
The happy cat life darkened in 1997 when Retriever "Buddy" joined them.
The US President described the rather tense relationship between the four-legged friends as trying to achieve a harmonious livelihood is about as difficult as “creating peace in Northern Ireland or the Middle East”.
"INDIA": Your name became the cause of angry protests.
George W. Bush and First Lady Laura actually named the black cat in the White House after the baseball player Ruben Sierra, who is nicknamed "El Indio".
Angry young people in India saw their nation insulted and in 2004 burned a doll belonging to the then US president.
Shortly afterwards, the ten-week-old Scotch Terrier lady "Miss Beazley", named after a children's book dinosaur, moved into government headquarters to keep her cat "India" and her fellow "Barney" company.
Spaniel «Spot» had previously died.
He had kept the president company not only on his ranch, but also in the Oval Office.
«MILLIE»: The nation feared for weeks, then the time had come: «Millie», the first lady among America's dogs at the time, gave birth to six healthy puppies in March 1989.
The fact that the most powerful man on the planet at that time, George Bush Sr., was temporarily banned from the marital bedroom by his wife Barbara because of "Millie" was not without family tensions: "This dog literally pushes between us at night," confided the President of the news magazine "Time".
Barbara lacks "the necessary discipline".
"She was stricter with the children than with the dog," sighed Bush with a wink.
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"CHECKERS": Richard Nixon's cocker spaniel "Checkers" also went down in history.
After all, he played a leading role in Nixon's famous speech, with which he defended himself against allegations of corruption in 1952 - at the time still a candidate for the vice-presidency under Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Critics had described the spaniel as an illegal campaign donation.
The future US president said on television that his family had lost their hearts to "Checkers" and wanted to keep him.
When Nixon moved into the White House in 1969, "Checkers" was no longer alive.
But the family had three new four-legged friends with them: "Vicky", the poodle, "King Timahoe", the Irish Red Setter and "Pasha", a Yorkshire Terrier.
"PUSHINKA": ponies, hamsters, parakeets, parrots - the family of US President John F. Kennedy surrounded itself with a particularly large number of pets.
But it was mainly «Pushinka» that achieved fame and honor.
In 1961 - in the middle of the Cold War - Kremlin chief Nikita Khrushchev gave the fluffy-white hybrid to the Kennedy family as a gift.
What is special: “Pushinka's” mother was one of the first dogs to fly into space at the beginning of the 1960s and to return safely to Earth.
After a romance with Kennedy's terrier "Charlie", Soviet-American offspring were born in 1963.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201201-99-532197 / 4
List of animals in the White House